Son of World War I pilot Jack Fury, Nick Fury became a legendary hero in the early years of World War II, taking missions into Europe alongside his friend Red Hargrove, under the command of Lt. Samuel Sawyer. During a mission in Holland, Fury, Hargrove and Sawyer befriended circus strongman Timothy “Dum-Dum” Dugan who became a close friend. Hargrove was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor that led the US to officially enter the war on December 7, 1941. Fury fought the Nazis in Northern Africa, then was reunited with Captain Sawyer, who made Sgt. Fury the leader of the US Rangers First Attack Squad, soon nicknamed the Howling Commandos for their boisterous battle cry. Dugan serves as Furys second-in-command and became his closest friend. The Howlers occasionally worked alongside Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Bucky (James Barnes), who became significant allies. During one mission, Furys left eye was damaged by a grenade and his lack of medical care eventually aggravated the wound. At one point, Professor Berthold Sternberg gave Fury the Infinity Formula, which retarded Furys aging process, although it required him to take regular injections to stay alive. Late in the war, Fury joined the OSS and with the wars end joined their post-war CIA agency.

In recent years, Fury was selected as director of SHIELD, an international intelligence agency equipped with state-of-the-art technology by Tony Stark. Fury recruited many of the Howlers to the organization, notably Dum Dum. As leader of SHIELD, Fury faced the likes of Hydra, AIM, Scorpio (his own brother Jacob) and the Hate-Monger (Adolf Hitlers clone). Fury was reunited with Captain America, who survived years in suspended animation, and the two rekindled their friendship. When SHIELD was beset by a conspiracy at its highest level by the Deltite, Fury allowed the organization to disband and later rebuilt it as a smaller unit he could more closely monitor. Fury also discovered he had a son, Mikel, who took the identity of Scorpio at first, but later joined SHIELD. When Fury learned of a conspiracy by Latverian Prime Minister Lucia von Bardas to equip super villains with specialized weaponry, he led a team of super heroes into Latveria for a first strike. Von Bardas survived the attack and in retaliation assaulted Manhattan with an army of super villains whose combined technology created an anti-matter bomb, which Furys superhuman protégé Quake (Daisy Johnson) stopped. Disgraced for his actions, Fury went into hiding and soon learned of a Skrull invasion which had infiltrated even the ranks of Earths heroes. Needing people he could trust, Fury recruited Quake and various other young superhumans into his Secret Warriors and helped defeat the Skrulls. In the battles aftermath, Norman Osborn gained mastery of SHIELD and replaced it with his own agency, HAMMER. Fury kept his Secret Warriors together to combat HAMMER and uncovered data alleging SHIELD had been a pawn of Hydra since its inception. Dum Dum gathered many of the ex-SHIELD agents loyal to Fury into the Howling Commandos Private Military Company and Fury helped set them up as his personal army.

Powers and Abilities:

Fury ages very slowly, provided by the Infinity Formula, retaining the appearance and vitality of a man less than half his age. Nick Fury has trained as a paratrooper, Ranger, demolitions expert and vehicle specialist. He holds an unlimited-tonnage, all-seas license as a commander of ocean-going vessels. Fury has completed Green and Black Beret Special Forces training, and has been an agent of the O.S.S. (Office of Special Services) and a liaison of the MI-5 (British Secret Intelligence). He is a seasoned unarmed- and armed-combat expert, was a heavyweight boxer in the Army, and holds a black belt in Tae Kwan Do and a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. Fury has honed his fighting skills sparring with Captain America, perhaps the world’s finest unarmed-combat expert. In his youth, Fury learned to fly planes and wing walking.

Nick Fury, initially a CIA agent, debuted a few months later in Fantastic Four #21 (Dec. 1963). In Strange Tales #135 (Aug. 1965) the character was transformed into a James Bond-like spy and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D. The character makes frequent appearances in Marvel comic books as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and as an intermediary between the U.S. government or the United Nations and various superheroes. It is eventually revealed that Fury takes a special medication called the Infinity Formula that halted his aging and allows him to be active despite being nearly a century old.